Once upon a time I fell in love with chess. I was never very good at it—because I was too lazy to practice and didn’t have the patience to study it in any depth—but I loved the romance of it and appreciated its place in history, art and culture such that I began collecting chess sets.

On a recent visit to Singapore, I played my (then 7-year-old, now 8-year-old) niece. I hadn’t played in about 15 years and she had highly suggestive coaching from my brother (who once beat Australian grandmaster Ian Rogers in a simultaneous match when he was at high school). She won, but not before I’d made a couple of silly moves, followed by incredible solutions that turned out to be not to my advantage after all.

I was reminded of this match recently when I decided on a whim that I hated my desk. As a freelancer who spends both working and non-working hours with this piece of furniture, liking one’s desk is an integral part of both the creative process and ergonomic sanity. It had to go.

The desk in itself wasn’t offensive. It was an IKEA Micke corner workstation with a couple of small shelves, file drawers and nooks to keep business cards and the like. It was just that suddenly I noticed how my 27-inch Macbook Pro screen only barely fit in the corner and that the vertical struts of the shelves were constantly in my periphery. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t help but notice it all the time.

I was due for an update anyhow. It’d been years since I’d bought office furniture and now that I’d become a full-time freelancer it was all gloriously tax deductible. I set aside a budget of $500 for a desk and a chair but then decided I didn’t want some shitty chipboard construction of a desk. Unfortunately it turns out that the reason shitty chipboard constructions exist is because they are cheap and solid wood is, well, not.

Serena—isn’t she beautiful?

Goaded by Google I stumbled into Gumtree where there were dozens of solid wood desk options well within my budget. Buoyed by this, I contacted a handful of sellers to gauge availability. I was particularly taken by two. The first was a large solidly constructed number with practical shelving and drawers. The second was a vintage folding bureau in Queen Anne style, far too small for my purposes but beautiful for writing on. They were both $100, far below my budget. And all I could think was: ¿por que no los dos?

Regrettable decision #1: buying two desks when I could only fit one in my office.

No matter, I thought. I could have the serious, practical one for the office and stash the Queen Anne one in my tea den, which would thus become my creative writing and correspondence desk on account of it being in my garage and out of wi-fi range and therefore immune from internet-fuelled distractions.

Regrettable decision #2: not having the desks delivered.

There’s a GoGet van down my street called Tanzi and I employed the services of Tanzi twice that week to pick up Emmanuel (serious desk; location: Anzac Parade, Kensington, a hella busy road) and Serena (creative desk; location: Pacific Highway, Lane Cove, a hella busy road) at a cost of something like $28 for each two-hour session + whatever the kilometre charge is for my GoGet level these days.

While $80-ish doesn’t seem like a lot to pay for picking up these bargain desks (recall I paid $100 for each of them), the opportunity cost from not working had now reached four hours, not counting the amount of time spent searching for furniture and liaising with the sellers.

I then encountered another problem: my partner and I did not have the muscle between us to carry Emmanuel (length: 130cm; approx weight: 70kg) to my office. It’s three stories up, which is six flights of stairs and five turns, plus we had to bring Micke down first. If I’d had the desks delivered instead of enthusiastically picking them up myself, I could’ve avoided this scenario.

I turned to Airtasker for help, offering two people $35 each for the task of bringing one desk down and hauling one desk up—a half-hour job, I wrote—which somehow spawned a bunch of people offering $230 for the task. Confounding.

After Airtasker failed, I started ringing around some local removalists I thought might be interested in the tiny job that could be done before or after another in the area. The best offer was $150. I then hit on one that advertised ‘no job too small’ and was quoted $60, which I took. For the record, the job took 15 minutes.

Regrettable decision #3: not measuring the right thing.

When I expressed interest in Emmanuel, I asked the seller for the dimensions of the footwell. I also took the time to measure its length to ensure he’d fit in the smaller space vacated by Micke. What I failed to measure was the height and depth of the upper shelf. In effect, it meant that either my monitor had to sit too high or too close to me. I tried working both ways and was rewarded with headaches and a sore neck.

What I needed was an underdesk keyboard drawer. Officeworks seemed to be the only major retailer selling them and it came at the lofty price of $109, internet purchase only.

(There is a minor interlude here that involves me buying the drawer on a ‘Click and Collect’ basis, dashing the 15-minute route from Chinese class at USyd [finishing time: 8:30pm] to Glebe Officeworks [closing time: 9pm] to pick it up only to find I hadn’t actually bought it.)

The arrival of Emmanuel prompted a blog post and the purchase of a brand new keyboard drawer.

Regrettable decision #4: setting up the desk.

As soon as Emmanuel arrived I went about filling his drawers and arranging all my accessories on him. When I finally received the drawer (thank you Officeworks, for the next-day delivery) I realised that it was going to have to be screwed in upwards, which is to say I’d have to lie down under the desk and make sure the screws went in perfectly vertically against gravity into solid wood while also holding the keyboard in place. Now, I’m not much of a handyperson at the best of times so this to me was like being asked to paint the Sistine Chapel.

All of this would have been avoided had I not set up the desk. If he’d been naked, I could’ve flipped him upside down and finished the task the easy way and we’d all be happy.

During these two days, I got sick and weak. I was too lazy to unpack Emmanuel (and clear a space in my office behind him big enough to accommodate flippage) and whenever I lay down under the desk, I began to wane.

Eventually, brushing aside pride and several decades of feminism, I employed my partner to do this task for me. His method involved screwing things out of order and using a drill to make guiding holes, two things I would never have thought to do having too much faith in the technical copywriter of the instruction manual and too little in my ability to avoid drilling a hole right through the desk.

So now Emmanuel is complete.

Cost of my folly

Emmanuel = $100

Serena = $100

GoGet fees = $79

Removalist fees = $60

Keyboard drawer = $109

(+10 working hours lost, unaccountable)

TOTAL = $448

Only $188 of which is tax deductible. And I still have to buy a chair.

(P.S: Does anyone want a free Micke workstation?)

Lessons learnt

I don’t employ strategic thinking for small things in my life and I rarely employ it for big things either. Somehow, though, fortune smiles down on me. What I lost when my niece beat me at chess, I won back in spades in bonding with her. Accordingly, whatever I lost in time and money on this stupid deskapade, I still ended up with two beautiful, functional pieces of furniture I’ll treasure for a while yet.

So there are no lessons learnt, really, I’m incorrigible like that. Except for an iteration of a lesson I forget sometimes, that things will work often out in the end.

Freelance client management is like a box of chocolates: all clients look good but it’s not until you’ve bitten into one that you realise the relationship is a cockroach cluster*. Or a cluster something else, anyway.

One of the benefits of working as a freelancer is that you can choose who to work with. Do not squander this benefit by choosing money over your sanity, at least not for the long term. If your client is a douchebag, don’t be afraid to (politely) ‘fire’ him/her/them. It’s worth it. There’s an opportunity cost if you work for douchebags, because you could be working with someone less painful. However, if there’s nothing in the bank, consider ‘pain pricing’, which is upping your rate for people you know are going to be trouble so you can at least ease the pain with cash.

The playground. More like freelancing than you can imagine.

How to find clients

Many freelance writers start freelancing after they’ve secured some contacts who can give them a decent amount of work. If you don’t have a Rolodex** of clients (or binders full of women) because you’re starting from scratch, or those contacts aren’t giving you enough work to keep you in cheese and wine, you’ll have to find some.

Approach clients you want to work for, whether that’s an editor at a publication or an organisation you like that you think could do with your services. As with any job hunt, do your research as to whether/how much they pay and the kind of work that’s likely to be on offer. Just say there’s an organisation you really like but it doesn’t accept paid content submissions to its lovely website, but will pay freelancers to write its press releases. Do you still want to work for it?

Network with other freelancers. Overflow work is always on offer. Find someone in a similar field to you and take them for coffee. Offer to help them with their workload. Once they trust your work they will feel more comfortable ‘subcontracting’ work to you or referring clients they cannot service to you.

Join freelance websites that post jobs. I do not recommend Freelancer as the kind of work and the rates are rather base, but services like Rachel’s List are worthwhile. It has an annual admin fee of $24.95, but I’ve scored several jobs there that I hadn’t heard about through other means, which easily made it value for money. Pedestrian and The Loop are also popular and worth a look, though I’ve never applied to posts at either of those.

Talk to people at events and have your business card ready, as you never know who might need you. I’ve been to parties where friends of friends ask me what I do and they’ve contacted me for my services. Industry events, for example conferences, are filled with potential clients.

Client expectations

A great percentage of client management is understanding what they expect of you and delivering at or above those expectations. There are two main types of clients I’ll discuss in this section: publications and organisations, under which I include businesses, government and not-for-profits.

Publications

Publications tend to have an established structure for managing freelancers. If you haven’t had a job in the publishing industry this process can be a little opaque, so I’ll take you through it.

Generally, the freelancer pitches a story idea to an editor. If the editor likes the idea, s/he will commission it. This involves a brief, a deadline, a word count and a word rate. You deliver on time, to brief and get paid.

Things to note:

Does the publication accept pitches? (Does it pay?)

Are there publication or pitching guidelines? Read them, heed them

Who’s the best person to pitch to? Find them, contact them

Research the publication: topic coverage, demographics, stories it has run recently and don’t suggest something that’s out of scope or already published

When I receive a commission, I like to confirm a few things before I start work. This is the minimum you need to ensure that you have a leg to stand on should the editor change his/her mind about running the piece (you may be able to extract a kill fee, for example) or should there be a dispute about what you’ve written matching what the editor wanted.

Brief of story including expectations re: interviewees, images etc

Word count

Rate (word rate or fee for whole article)

Deadline

Format (if applicable)

Contract (if applicable). A contract may state payment terms, copyright terms etc. READ THIS. Do not sign or accept the conditions by default if you are not comfortable with it.

ALWAYS SUBMIT YOUR WORK ON TIME AND TO BRIEF. I used to be an editor and it is actually amazing how many writers do not do either of these very basic things. Work that is 80% there but submitted on time is better than 100% there and submitted late. At least the editor know s/he has something to run, even if it may need work!

Follow-up is also important. If there’s no response (even busy editors usually ping back a ‘thanks’), call/email a day later to check if the editor has received your submission. I’ve been saved by this before when my email was playing up. If the editor says the piece needs more work, be available to do the rework promptly.

Once the editor is satisfied, invoice promptly. I like to make sure the editor is okay with the piece before sending my invoice, but for regular clients I now submit it in the same email. Just check what the editor’s preference is if you are unsure. S/he may have an assistant who handles invoices, or you may need to liaise with the accounting department.

If it is not made clear earlier, find out when your piece will be published (whether online or in print) so you can brag about it and add a clipping to your portfolio. It may also be a good time to sound out when the editor will be commissioning more stories and what s/he is looking for—you can then pitch again.

Other clients

Non-publication clients may engage freelancers differently and it’s certainly my experience that they usually come up with a brief themselves (rather than you pitching to them) and also pay by the hour or by the project rather than the word. My approach is simply to be there to make their job easier. If it’s my job to come up with ideas, I come up with ideas; if it’s my job to fulfil someone else’s brief, I fulfil it.

Just like with a commission, I like to make sure there are certain arrangements in place before I start work. I suggest you:

Ask for or propose a brief. If the client does not have a thorough brief or you are not confident quoting to the supplied brief, don’t be afraid to ask for further details. This is the professional thing to do and will help you scope the work.

Ask for or propose a deadline. If it’s a fairly long project, break up the pieces of work into milestones.

Quote thoroughly. This includes your rate, what is included in that rate, how many hours you think the job may take, and payment terms. Also include provisions for further work/costs should the job take longer than expected.

Some clients, if you give an inch, will take a mile, so be firm about the fiddly ‘extras’ that clients like to include but don’t want to pay for. For example, I include two rounds of revisions in my editing work but if the client comes back and says ‘just one more tiny change’ after those two rounds, I charge. It may be a nominal amount, like $5, but I like to show that there’s a cost to me (and them) to drop everything to accommodate something beyond the agreed brief. It also teaches them to be more thorough with their revisions next time.

As with publications, submit on time and to brief. I admit that I’m absolutely terrible with soft deadlines and will almost always bend self-determined deadlines so I ask my clients to set a deadline for me and I deliver to it. Once the client is satisfied, invoice promptly.

Juggling clients

A lot of freelancers like freelancing because of the variety of work and, in addition to keeping you fresh, a diversity of clientele is also good to stabilise your cashflow. My clients are mainly small businesses, publishers, member organisations and occasionally advertisers for a website I run. They pay different rates, in different cycles and the work is different for each.

On the other hand you may wish to specialise because you love a particular industry or type of work (for example you may only want to write feature articles). My only warning is not to put all your eggs in one basket because people move around and what you thought was a reliable commission can suddenly peter out.

How many is too many? Consider the ir/regularity of jobs, how organised you are, and how demanding they are. I have about 20 clients but only 5-6 of them are active at one time. I have one client on a monthly retainer and fairly reliable commissions from two bi-monthly publications; the rest is made up of ad hoc and semi-regular work.

Don’t forget it’s not just about the hours, it’s the headspace you need to service them all well: seven one-hour jobs for different clients will not take you just seven hours.

I’m not always good at this, but I have since learnt to prioritise and hone my time management skills as well as communicate with my clients to adjust their expectations when things are hectic. This is better than having them chase you when you haven’t delivered on time, which will earn you a reputation as being unreliable, which is almost the worst thing you can be***.

There’s a myth about freelancing that comes largely from Hollywood glamorisation with just a touch of one’s own self-delusion. Being a freelance writer is not like being Hunter S in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or that neophyte whose name I forget in Almost Famous.

Nor is it usually a life of researching and crafting hard-hitting long-form investigative pieces that you file twice a year for a massive payload that sustains you until the next one.

The truth is writers undertake different kinds of freelancing to sustain themselves. Even the most successful freelancers I know don’t exclusively write in one area, and many do things other than write. This includes, but is not limited to, the following activities.

Freelancing is not like being Hunter S in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal Pictures)

Different kinds of freelance writing

Journalism

Content development

Ghostwriting

Blogging

Copywriting

Other media (film/TV/radio etc)

Freelancing related to writing

Editing/sub-editing/proofreading

Teaching/tutoring

Speaking/facilitation

Publishing

Consulting

Most of my income comes from magazine commissions, content development such as blogs and newsletters for business clients, and ghostwriting (bylines under my clients’ names). Occasionally I get some money when organisations advertise on my project management website, but I don’t invest time in the sales process so it’s usually pocket money if I do. Once in a while I get an editing gig.

I know of bloggers who sell some advertising on their blog but then earn a great deal of their income through other means, for example speaking and consulting, and I know of plenty of freelancers who love being a journalist but find they have more opportunities (and make more money) editing tenders and annual reports.

If you thought being a freelancer was 100% writing about unicorns (ie your pet topic), I’m sorry to say very few people get to do this. But don’t despair, because the above examples actually show how versatile the field can be.

If you know how to put good words in the right order, there will always be a job for you somewhere. You may not want to do everything you can do, and that’s fine—on a personal note, I no longer want to write someone else’s LinkedIn profile—but being too precious eventually leads to starvation.

That being said, remember why you’re freelancing. If it’s for the freedom to write what you want to write, then maybe the money is secondary. Perhaps you’re better off doing something else for income so you can write for pleasure (which doesn’t mean writing for free, but don’t rely on this income). That’s okay too, but if you’re serious about freelancing as an occupation, you’re going to have to consider the whole spectrum of earning activities you can undertake as a writer.

My next post will be on finding and managing different kinds of clients.